White House threatens veto of Defense bill

The White House threatened Tuesday to veto the House’s version
of the Defense authorization bill that is on the floor this week.

The Obama administration said it would veto the bill over
Guantánamo, missile defense and an additional $5 billion the Armed Services
Committee provided for funding the war in Afghanistan.

ADVERTISEMENT

The administration also objected to the funding topline for the $638 billion
bill, which followed the House-passed budget that keeps Defense under the sequester
spending cap by making deep cuts to other discretionary programs.

“H.R. 1960 assumes adoption of the House Budget Resolution
framework, which would hurt our economy and require draconian cuts to
middle-class priorities,” the administration said in a Statement of
Administration Policy (SAP). “As the administration indicated previously, the president's
senior advisors would recommend vetoing any appropriations legislation that
implements the House Republican Budget framework."

The administration issued a laundry list of complaints about
the bill that passed the House Armed Services Committee 59-2 last week.

Many of the administration’s objections will not make it through
the Senate bill, where Democrats have control, but several of the disputed provisions
were similar to provisions in last year’s Defense authorization bill that President
Obama signed into law. That bill also received a veto threat.

In this year’s authorization bill, the White House once
again objected to prohibitions on the transfer of detainees from Guantánamo Bay
to U.S. soil or for the U.S. to begin construction on any U.S. facility for the
detainees.

President Obama has made a new push to close the detention
facility, but Congress has already taken votes to continue the restrictions on
moving detainees.

The administration said that it did not want the additional
$5 billion that was included for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) to fund
the war in Afghanistan.